The wrestling team started out strong with a 45-24 win against a small Harker team on Jan. 8, but followed it up with an 48-18 loss against Milpitas on Jan. 15, a 48-24 loss against Homestead on Jan. 22 and a 48-24 loss against Los Altos on Jan. 27.
Even as three seniors graduated last year, the team this year has added four freshmen: Ryan Belan, Anthony Javier, Robert Ryan, and Frank Talavera-Gutierrez. Sophomore Nick Davis is also an addition to the team.
The new grapplers have all been training hard. Davis said they have been “learning new techniques and good moves” to use in their matches.
In their first match against Harker, the three wrestlers who participated (sophomores Nick Davis and Gina Drapal and senior Connor Peebles) won their matches.
“Harker isn’t known for being that great of a team, so it would have been pretty sad to lose any matches at all,” said Drapal.
Davis did well in his first match against Harker, winning 21-4 against his opponent. But in his match against Milpitas, he was pinned in the first period by a junior in the 106 weight group.
“[In the Milpitas match], I wrestled against a junior, and he was just very good,” Davis said. “He had more experience than me [which caused me to lose].”
Other freshmen including Ryan, who also wrestles in the 106-113 weight group, were also pinned in the first period against Milpitas.
The team also lost against Homestead due to forfeits in unfilled weights. All three seniors who wrestled (Nate Ludwig, Connor Peebles and Jason Tsai) won their matches. Ludwig was able to pin his opponent in less than 30 seconds. Younger wrestlers, Belan, Davis and Talavera-Gutierrez, lost their matches.
The team also lost to Los Altos. Senior star wrestler Christian Murabito and Peebles were the only two to win in that match, both with pins. The rest of the team lost their matches. This was Murabito’s first match of the season, and he beat his opponent with a final score of 12-0.
According to Peebles, this was Murabito’s first match because other teams did not want to wrestle against him. Instead, Murabito had participated in other tournaments for the team during the season, and won first place for the 195 group in the 2015 Bert Mar invitational.
The team's confrontations with Milpitas, Homestead and Los Altos proved to highlight the disadvantage the team had without former star members of the team.
“We lost some good wrestlers and team leaders, and started this year with some inexperienced freshmen, two sophomores and no juniors,” Ludwig said. “The four seniors have become the team leaders; the ones who teach the freshmen and sophomores.”
From the first few matches, Ludwig said that they learned to “train harder, and [use] better technique” in order to accomplish this goal. Ludwig also said that the team is focused on improving their overall fitness and strength.
Their next match will be at home against Santa Clara on Feb. 5.